Stud Finder (1001 Dark Nights)

by Lauren Blakely

  “I doubt it.”

  “Anyway, how is our lovely matchmaker? Is Patrick’s sister finding you a fabulous lady to love?”

  “She’s working on it,” I say, but the thing is, I like spending time with Evie more than I should. More than I expected to. But I’m not sure if I should say that to Mia. In fact, I should probably keep my lips zipped. Evie and I aren’t in the cards. She’s not interested in a relationship, and I’m not interested in a crush that goes nowhere.

  It’s best to reboot to business—the business of finding love.

  “It’s going great,” I say, with my ridiculously happy disposition.

  “She’s fun, isn’t she? Sharp, too. I like her,” Mia says, drumming her fingers against the counter as I turn in the weapons.

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Interlude

  Sometimes, the story reaches a fork in the road. Our hero can go one way, our fair heroine another. What’s a storyteller to do when such a happenstance occurs? Every now and then, in the middle of a tale, someone needs a nudge. A wink. Maybe even a shove. After all, even when two people seem like a fit to others, they often still can’t see what’s in front of their noses. One needs to hold up a mirror for them.

  Chapter Ten

  Evie

  There is dirt. There are trees. There are bushes, and bugs, and creepy crawlies.

  I can’t believe I’m hiking.

  “Am I going to be attacked by a snake?” I ask Patrick as I scan behind me for slithery creatures.

  “Nope,” he says, marching confidently forward. “Just bears.”

  I jump. “Where?”

  He points in the distance, beyond the bend in this trail rolling along the Hudson River shorefront, one of my brother’s regular haunts for his adventure tour business.

  “Are you kidding?” I ask, my voice squeaking.

  My big, tall, burly brother laughs, tossing his head back as he stops in his tracks. “You’re such a city girl.”

  I park my hands on my hips and stare sternly down my nose. Or up my nose, since Patrick is ten feet taller than me. But, in defense of my height, he’s ten feet taller than most people.

  “Are. There. Bears?”

  He rolls his eyes and gestures to the cliffs overlooking the river, and the sweeping views of Manhattan in the distance. “No bears. But check out the bird of prey.” He points above to a toweringly tall tree.

  I follow his hand to a high branch, claimed by a hawk.

  “Birds of prey know they’re cool,” I say, reciting a favorite cartoon line, and Patrick raises a fist to bump with mine. We used to read The Far Side together when we were kids. Patrick and I actually get along well for siblings, even though we’re opposites in many ways—I’m a city girl, and he’s the king of the outdoors. But he has a soft heart and a witty brain, and we’ve both sparred and played well over the years.

  “Also, would I ever put you in harm’s way?”

  “You better not,” I say, and we resume our pace.

  “I like you too much to let a bear get you.”

  “Aww, you’re sweet,” I say as we crunch along the trail, Patrick several paces ahead.

  A tree branch rustles in the breeze and the water gurgles. “Besides, if a bear shows up, all I have to do is outrun you,” he deadpans.

  I lunge at him, jumping on his back, crawling up him like a lemur, and delivering an absolutely punishing noogie. “You’re dead to me,” I mutter.

  Patrick cracks up.

  As I jump off him, I say, “I’m going to tell Mia you use women as bear shields.”

  He turns around and gives me a huh look. “Why would you tell Mia?”

  “Because you’re into her?” I ask, suddenly confused.

  He arches a brow. “I am?”

  Make that even more confused. “I thought you two were a thing. I saw you chatting with her at the dinner party at Max and Henley’s a few weeks ago. Isn’t there something there?”

  He winks and slugs my arm. “Just kidding. I have it bad for Mia, but I’m not sure I’m her type.”

  I move my arms jerkily and speak in a robotic voice. “Does. Not. Compute. Woman who does not fall for Patrick’s charms.”

  “Ha ha,” he says as the hawk sails overhead, scouring the skies. “Some women are strangely immune to me.” He clears his throat. “But, um, what about you? And that guy?”

  “What guy? I’m not seeing anyone.”

  “I thought you were helping someone,” he says, and the words come out awkward, which in itself is odd since Patrick and I usually chat comfortably about dating.

  “You mean my new client?”

  He snaps his fingers as he stops to gaze at the water and the picnic-perfect views. “That’s it. The Stud Finder is finding a studette. Any luck?”

  For a brief moment, I wonder if Patrick is asking if I’m into Dylan. I don’t want to let on, though, so I keep my answer all business. “Not yet, but I’m still getting to know him so I can make the right match.”

  He clears his throat. “And do you dig him?”

  I tilt my head to the side, studying his face. “Why would I dig him? He’s a client.”

  Patrick drags a hand through his light brown hair, the look on his face flustered. It’s a look I don’t see him wear often. “I thought you and Dylan had a connection,” he says, in that flummoxed tone again.

  I furrow my brow. “Why would you think that?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, tossing up his hands. “But the way you deny it makes me wonder.”

  I part my lips to practice denial once more, but I think better of it. I go for truth, because I need to say it. “If you must know, I actually think he’s quite handsome and way more fun than I ever expected, and we have more in common than I imagined…but…”

  “There’s always a but.”

  “But he’s a client, Patrick,” I say, a note of desperation threading through my voice. “It would be wrong to fall for him.”

  “Can’t mess around with the customers,” he says, nodding, since that’s one of his golden rules, too.

  “Exactly.”

  He tips his forehead to the hawk, circling high above. “That hawk would break the rules, though.”

  “That’s why he’s a hawk. He can do whatever he wants.”

  For the first time ever, I kind of want to be a hawk.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dylan

  The banging on the door can only mean my sister is here. Nobody else can bang that loudly.

  Pound. Pound. Pound.

  I stride across the hardwood floors and unlock the door to my loft apartment. “How does one person pack so much punch into her fist?”

  “I’m mighty,” she shouts as she marches in.

  “And you’re here.” I point to the floor since I wasn’t expecting her.

  “Of course I’m here. Because of your text.” She waves her phone at me, as if it’s been naughty. “Seriously? You don’t know what to wear to yoga?”

  I heave a sigh. “I sent you a text message. You don’t need to arrive like the cavalry.”

  “Oh, I do. I very much do.” She marches past me into my bedroom.

  “Hello? Bedroom. Respect privacy much?”

  Her eyes shoot laser beams at me. “Is that a real question? My whole career is predicated on both respecting and disrespecting privacy.”

  “True.”

  She reaches my bureau and parks her hands on her hips. “All right. Let’s do this.”

  “Olivia, all I want to know is if I have to get a pair of fucking yoga pants.”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t take a chance of you messing this up. If you think you’re wearing yoga pants to a yoga class, I know you’ll show up dressed like Richard Simmons, like the time you wore too short shorts to a roller-skating party.”

  “Do you really have to remind me of that?” I cringe, remembering the height of my dorkitude in middle school, when I was invited to a party at the roller rink and showed up in an out
fit that should have been banned a decade prior. In my defense, there was nothing in HTML or C++ code about the proper attire for a roller-skating party, and I’d had my face in front of a screen when I was twelve.

  And when I was sixteen. And twenty, and so on.

  “I do. I do have to remind you of that,” Olivia says as she loops her brown hair into a bun. “Because you can’t go to yoga wearing yoga pants. Cool guys don’t wear yoga pants to yoga class.”

  “No worries there since I’m not cool.”

  “You’re cool enough.”

  “What do I wear then?”

  “Basketball shorts and a gray T-shirt.”

  “That’s weirdly specific.”

  She looks to the window, speaking softly. “It’s what Herb wears when he goes to spin classes.”

  “Herb does spin classes?” I ask as I open the drawer containing my gym shorts.

  She snaps her gaze back to me. “He does, and he looks hot.”

  I wiggle my eyebrows. “You want me to look hot like your soon-to-be husband?”

  She grabs a pair of shorts from the open drawer and launches them at me, like a missile. I grab them before they flutter to the floor.

  “No. I just want to save you from yourself.”

  “So noble. And all you had to do was text me to tell me to wear basketball shorts and a T-shirt.”

  “I know, but even by text you’d think it meant something else.”

  “Duly noted. But, um, why not yoga pants or yoga shorts?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.

  She makes a noise with her throat. It grows louder and louder. “Because if anything gets, you know…” Her eyes drift downward.

  “YOU MEAN IF I GET A BONER?”

  Her face flushes beet red. “Don’t say that ever again.”

  “You brought it up.”

  “Also, why are you going to yoga with Evie? You hate yoga.”

  There it is—the million-dollar question. I’m going to yoga because I know I’ll hate it. I’m going to yoga because I can’t risk going near a hotel room or out to dinner with a woman I’m trying my damnedest to be unattracted to. Yoga is a recipe for killing this bizarre and unexpected lust I feel for my matchmaker.

  “Evie wants to discuss what worked well and didn’t work well on some of my recent dates before I started working with her, so I suggested we do yoga and talk after.”

  “I can’t picture you doing yoga.”

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

  Since I have no intention of doing yoga ever again.

  * * * *

  Yoga pants.

  Damn it.

  Why didn’t I think about how absolutely fucking delicious she’d look in yoga pants? I was so fixated on not wearing hot pants that I never thought about how hot she’d look in hers.

  The fabric hugs her ass.

  The material worships her legs.

  The cotton caresses her calves.

  I nearly whimper at her downward dog in front of me.

  I am a dog as I stare at her ass.

  “That’s right. Feel your palms dig into the mat, and push your feet as flat as you can against the floor,” the teacher says, her calm voice wafting across the yoga studio, making me want to roll my eyes. “Feel all your energy drive into your feet, and then flow back through your body.”

  It’s all such mumbo jumbo, but nonetheless, the straight A student in me is programmed to listen to teachers, since school was the boxing ring where I dominated. I adjust my stance, picturing my feet pressing against the floor like anchors, as she instructs.

  “Good. Now, hold that stance with your hips driving down,” the curly-haired teacher intones.

  I’d like to drive into the woman in front of me.

  And I wobble. I fucking wobble to the side, the floor tilting precariously closer. And then, yep. The floor hits me. Damn floor. My shoulder lands first with a loud thwack.

  Evie pops up. “Are you okay?”

  I shake it off, getting back into position. “Yep. Just fine.”

  The teacher floats over, and I wave her off. “I’m all good.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Everything is fine,” I say, with the confidence that helped me pull off the multimillion-dollar sale of our company. I might have a dork still in me, but I know how to go full business stud when I have to.

  Like when I fall on my fucking shoulder.

  Besides, everything is fine since at least now I’m not aroused in class anymore.

  A little later, we turn ninety degrees as the teacher begins a series of tree poses, and I try to keep my focus ahead of me, but out of the corner of my eye, I watch Evie, now to my side.

  She digs her left heel into the ground and slides her right foot up her inner left leg.

  “That’s right.” The teacher nods at Evie, who’s fashioning herself into a flamingo.

  “Everyone can reach a different place here,” the teacher says. “Some might keep your right foot mostly on the floor. Others might rest against the ankle, others the calf, and others the knee. It’s not a contest. It’s a mindset.”

  I refrain from rolling my eyes, even as I only manage to position the bottom of my foot against my ankle.

  But Pretzel Girl? Evie hikes that leg up high, so damn high, she plants her foot against her upper inner thigh.

  The teacher strides across the room. “The focus is balance. Look straight ahead and balance.”

  Evie stares intensely at the wall as she stands on one leg. Her body is tight, her concentration stellar, and she wriggles her right foot higher, and higher still, as if she’s waging war to claim the Most Flexible Body in the Class prize.

  The teacher walks past her, then stops, doubles back and sets her hands on Evie’s hips, wiggling her. “Move your foot lower.”

  “But I can keep it here,” Evie says tightly.

  A smile crosses the teacher’s placid face. “I’m sure you can, but it’s not a competition. The goal is balance, not maximum flexibility.”

  The teacher nudges Evie’s foot lower, to her knee. Evie huffs when the teacher walks away. Then she looks at me and sticks out her tongue at the teacher.

  My eyes widen, and holy shit.

  I think I might really like her.

  A lot.

  * * * *

  “You’re a closet yoga competitor,” I whisper as we leave the studio and head toward Central Park.

  Evie flutters her lashes innocently. “Who said I was competing?”

  I nudge her shoulder.

  “Who, me?” she asks, feigning innocence.

  Something bubbles inside me. A feeling of excitement. Of desire. Or true and honest like.

  “You were one hundred percent practicing competitive yoga.”

  We stride toward the park. “Fine,” she says, spitting it out like it costs her something. “I was. It’s my dirty little secret.” She stops and turns to me, words spilling out of her like a confessional. “I go to yoga, and it’s slow. I make it a game. In my head, I pretend I’m competing for the most flexible award. And since I’m terrible at sports, this is the one area I’m weirdly good at. So I pretend to compete, and it drives me crazy when the teacher calls me on it. Like, why can’t I pretend to compete in a flexibility game?” She digs her hands into her hair. “I feel terrible saying this.”

  “Welcome to the competitive club. We have jackets.”

  She lets out a long breath. “Oh God, it feels so good to admit this though. I love yoga and do it because it’s good for me, but sometimes it’s slow, so I make it more fun, like a game,” she says, grabbing my shoulders to emphasize her point.

  Yeah, she can grab my shoulders anytime. And by anytime, I mean she can pull me closer. Bring me deeper, wrap her arms around me.

  What the hell? I’m doing it again. Fantasizing. But then, she’s the one staring at me, with her hands curled over my shoulders.

  “I’m also like that,” I say. The street sign ticks behind us, indicating the ligh
t has changed.

  “I know. When does it stop? The crazy competitive drive.” She lets go of me, and we cross the street.

  “I don’t think it ever does,” I say, snagging a bench inside the park. “You’ll probably become one of those people at the gym who pretends to race on the exercise bike against the woman next to her.”

  She clasps her hand to her mouth. “Oh God, I’ve done that.”

  My lips quirk up. “Maybe you even take the stairs at the airport instead of the escalator, and see if you can make it up faster while carrying a suitcase.”

  Her eyes widen. “Guilty as charged.”

  I lean in closer, going for the zinger. “I bet you even do it on moving walkways. You’ll see if you can walk faster than the people on the motorized one.”

  She grabs her cheeks, her expression turning to The Scream.

  “Don’t be ashamed. Just accept that you’re truly a competitive beast.”

  Nodding, she settles, taking a breath. “I am Evie, competitive beast.”

  I pump a fist. “Knew I could get you to admit it. Also, takes one to know one.”

  “And to think, I’m supposed to be getting to know you better, and here you are, reading me like an open book.”

  “Hey, you aren’t an open book. Not every Tom, Dick, or Harry could add up the clues about you. I paid attention,” I say, meeting her blue-eyed gaze.

  Her expression goes softer. Her eyes sparkle, and her lips curve into a gentle smile. Her eyes stay locked with mine, and the silence feels important. Like it could lead to something. “You do pay attention. I like that.”

  And I like so many things about her.

  Like the way she looks at me. How the tip of her tongue darts out to lick her lip. How her eyes don’t stray from mine. Most of all, how my body seems to hum when she’s near me, and I’m dying to know if she feels the same.

  She squares her shoulders. “But I need to get to know a few more details so I can set you up on your dates. Did you do your homework? Can you tell me what you liked and didn’t like in your last few dates?”

  And here we are again.